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Summary

Inspiring stories and practical advice from America’s most respected journalistsThe country’s most prominent journalists and nonfiction authors gather each year at Harvard’s Nieman Conference on Narrative Journalism. Telling True Storiespresents their best advice—covering everything from finding a good topic, to structuring narrative stories, to writing and selling your first book. More than fifty well-known writers offer their most powerful tips, including: • Tom Wolfeon the emotional core of the story • Gay Taleseon writing about private lives • Malcolm Gladwellon the limits of profiles • Nora Ephronon narrative writing and screenwriters • Alma Guillermoprietoon telling the story and telling the truth • Dozens of Pulitzer Prize–winning journalists from the Atlantic Monthly, New Yorker, New York Times, Los Angeles Times, Washington Postand more . . .The essays contain important counsel for new and career journalists, as well as for freelance writers, radio producers, and memoirists. Packed with refreshingly candid and insightful recommendations, Telling True Storieswill show anyone fascinated by the art of writing nonfiction how to bring people, scenes, and ideas to life on the page.

Author Biography

Mark Kramer is director and writer-in-residence of the Nieman Program on Narrative Journalism at Harvard University.Wendy Call is a freelance writer and editor based in Seattle. She has been a Fellow of the Institute of Current World Affairs in southern Mexico and a Scholar in Nonfiction at the Bread Loaf Writers-' Conference.

Table of Contents

Stories matter

p. 3

Delving into private lives

p. 6

The narrative idea

p. 10

Difficult journalism that's slap-up fun

p. 14

Finding good topics : a writer's questions

p. 20

Finding good topics : an editor's questions

p. 22

Reporting for narrative : ten overlapping rules

p. 24

To tape or not to tape?

p. 28

Interviewing : accelerated intimacy

p. 30

The psychological interview

p. 34

Participatory reporting : sending myself to prison

p. 35

Being there

p. 39

Not always being there

p. 45

Reporting across cultures

p. 46

Reporting on your own

p. 48

Field notes to full draft

p. 51

Doing enough reporting?

p. 54

From story idea to published story

p. 55

(Narrative) J school for people who never went

p. 59

Profiles

p. 66

The ladder of abstraction

p. 70

Every profile is an epic story

p. 71

The limits of profiles

p. 73

Travel writing : inner and outer journeys

p. 74

The personal essay and the first-person character

p. 78

First personal singular : sometimes, it is about you

p. 81

Columns : intimate public conversations

p. 83

Writing about history

p. 86

Adventures in history Melissa

p. 88

Narrative investigative writing

p. 89

Public radio : community storytelling

p. 92

What narrative writers can learn from screenwriters

p. 98

To begin the beginning

p. 100

Narrative distance

p. 103

Hearing our subjects' voices : quotes and dialogue

p. 104

Hearing our subjects' voices : keeping it real and true

p. 107

A story structure

p. 109

Summary versus dramatic narrative

p. 111

Weaving story and idea

p. 112

Endings

p. 116

Character

p. 126

Details matter

p. 128

Developing character

p. 129

Reconstructing scenes

p. 132

A reconstructed scene

p. 135

Setting the scene

p. 136

Handling time

p. 139

Sequencing : text as line

p. 140

Writing complicated stories

p. 145

How I get to the point

p. 148

The emotional core of the story

p. 149

Telling the story, telling the truth

p. 154

On voice

p. 158

The line between fact and fiction

p. 164

Toward an ethical code for narrative journalists

p. 170

Playing fair with subjects

p. 172

Securing consent

p. 176

Truth and consequences

p. 177

Dealing with danger : protecting your subject and your story

p. 178

A dilemma of immersion journalism

p. 182

Ethics in personal writing

p. 184

Taking liberties : the ethics of the truth

p. 187

The ethics of attribution

p. 189

What about endnotes?

p. 192

On style

p. 198

A writer and editor talk shop

p. 202

Revising - over and over again

p. 205

Transforming one hundred notebooks into thirty-five thousand words

p. 208

How to come lip short

p. 212

Narrative in four boxes

p. 216

Serial narratives

p. 218

Care and feeding of editors and writers

p. 221

Beginning in narrative

p. 228

A brief history of narrative in newspaper

p. 230

Nurturing narrative in the newsroom

p. 233

A storyteller's Lexicon

p. 235

Narrative as a daily habit

p. 239

Building a narrative team

p. 243

Two visions, one series : a writer and an editor talk about what they do